CHAPTER VII. THE BOND ROBBERY
It seemed to Jimmie Dale that, in the darkness, the room was full of unseen devils laughing and jeering derisively at him. It seemed that reality did not exist; that only unreality prevailed. The Magpie—dead! It seemed for the moment that he had utterly lost his grip upon himself; that mentally he was being tossed helplessly about, the sport of fate. The Magpie—dead! It meant—what did it mean? He must think now, and think quickly. It meant, first of all, that any hope for the Tocsin which he had built upon the Magpie was shattered, gone forever. And it meant, that gray seal on the sole of the dead man’s boot, that the murder had been committed with even greater cunning and finesse, and an even greater security for the murderer, than he had attributed to the Magpie a moment since, when he had thought the Magpie the instigator, and not the victim, of the crime.
He was examining the wound, searching for the weapon—it must have been a blunt instrument of some sort—with which the blow, or blows, had been struck. There was nothing. The Magpie lay there—dead. That was all.
Mechanically Jimmie Dale replaced the bed in its original position over the murdered man, and stood staring down again at the gray seal on the Magpie’s boot. It was not why the Magpie had been murdered, it was who had murdered him! Once, long, long ago, almost at the outset of the Gray Seal’s career, a spurious gray seal had been used before. But this was a vastly different, and far more significant matter. Then it had been an attempt to foist the identity of the Gray Seal upon a poor, miserable devil in order to secure a reward—here it was a crime, murder, coolly, callously laid to the Gray Seal, that the guilty man might escape without a breath of suspicion. Just another crime credited to the Gray Seal! No one would dispute it; no one would question it; no one would dream that it had been done by any one other than the Gray Seal. There was a brutal possibility about the ingenuity of the man who had struck the blow. It was the Magpie who had put his finger upon Larry the Bat as the Gray Seal; it was the Magpie who had tried to accomplish the Gray Seal’s death. Would it, then, occasion even surprise that the Magpie should be found murdered in his own den at the hands of the Gray Seal? It was even his own argument, the very reason that had led him to assume the role of Larry the Bat, and had brought him here to the Magpie’s to-night!
Jimmie Dale bent down for a closer inspection of the diamond-shaped gray seal on the boot’s sole. It was not one of his own; but it was so similar that it would unquestionably pass muster. The red crept to Jimmie Dale’s cheeks and burned there, as a sudden, merciless anger swept upon him. Who was the man who had done this, who sheltered himself from murder behind the Gray Seal!
He laughed low and bitterly. Only another crime attributed to the Gray Seal! It would not smirch the Gray Seal any—the Gray Seal had been accused of worse than this! But the man who had dared to place that gray seal there would answer for it!
He was still laughing in that low, bitter way, as he knelt now, and took out his pocketknife. The gray seal, at least, would not be found—he was lucky there—he had only to scrape it off, and—No—wait! Would it not be better to leave it there? It would throw the murderer off his guard if he believed that his plan had worked; and it could make little difference to the Gray Seal’s record to be held guilty of another murder—temporarily. Temporarily! Yes, that was it! Here was one crime of which the Gray Seal would be vindicated, and the guilty man be—
“Jimmie!”
It seemed to quiver, low-breathed, through the darkness—his name. His name! Was he bereft of all his senses! His name! Here in this horrible murder hole! Was he indeed mad with his imaginings, with these voices that had been whispering, and laughing, and jeering at him out of the blackness! And, absurdly, it had seemed this time that it was the Tocsin’s voice!
“Jimmie—quick! On the floor under the window!”
He whirled like a flash. Mistake! Imaginings! No! It was the Tocsin! It was her voice! The gleam of his flashlight cut the black, and, leaping across the room, played upon the small, narrow, oblong window—it was from there the voice had come. But it was only black and empty there. And around the room his flashlight swept, and it was black and empty there, too—except for a square, white object upon the floor below the window. She was gone.
And it was like a half sob that came from Jimmie Dale’s lips.
“Gone!” he whispered miserably. “Gone!”
Why had she gone like that? Why had she not waited—just for a moment, just for the single instant, if he could have had no more, that he would have given his life to have? And the answer was in his soul. He knew, and he, knew that she, too, knew, that it would not have been moment or an instant—that he would never have let her go again. And to follow her? He shook his head. By the time he had climbed out of the window, what trace, any more than there was now, would there of her! She was gone—a sort of finality in her act, as there always was, that left nothing to be done, or said.
But the note! That white thing there upon the floor! He crossed the room, picked it up, tore it open, and, with his flashlight upon it, began to read.
“Jimmie—Jimmie—” It was scrawled in haste, only a few lines. His eyes travelled rapidly over the words, and suddenly his breath came fast.
“My God!” he cried out sharply.
As though he could not have read aright, he read again; disjointed words and phrases muttered audibly: “... Afraid not in time ... hurry ... this afternoon ... the Magpie and Virat ... Kenleigh, insurance broker ... safe in Kenleigh’s house ... ground floor—left ... one hundred thousand dollars ... bonds ... will try it ... Meighan of headquarters ... half-past one at Virat’s ... Gray Seal ... Larry the Bat ... if dangerous, keep away ...”
One glance around the room Jimmie Dale gave instinctively; and then he was crawling through the window, and, outside, regaining his feet, he darted across the yard, and out into the lane. Kenleigh, the insurance broker—he repeated the address she had given in the note over to himself. It was an apartment house on Avenue near Washington Square.
He ran on, as he had come, through lane and alley, working his way out of the Bad Lands. It was dangerous, of coarse, in any case, but once clear of that section of the city which houses the underworld, his risk of discovery was greatly minimised, since, though familiar to every denizen of gangland, Larry the Bat was naturally not the same intimate figure in the more law-abiding and respectable districts; and he should, except for an extraordinary piece of bad luck, pass in the quarters he was now heading for as no more than exactly what his appearance proclaimed him to be—a disreputable and seedy vagrant.
It was slow work, hurry as he would, doubling and zigzagging his way up through the East Side; discouraging, when time was so great a factor, to cover three and four times the actual distance in order to keep to the lanes and alleys whose shelter he dared not leave; but he was spurred on now by a sort of grim, unholy joy. He knew now who had murdered the Magpie, and why; he knew now who was making a tool, a cat’s-paw of the Gray Seal; he knew now who had so cynically elected him, if caught, as a substitute for the other to the electric chair. It was Virat! Frenchy Virat, the suave, sleek gambler, confidence man and crook! Well, the game was of Virat’s choosing—and they would play it out now to the end, Virat and the Gray Seal, if it was the last act of his, Jimmie Dale’s, life! It was only a question now of whether or not Virat had completed all his work, of whether there was yet time to get to Kenleigh’s.
It was close to midnight, as Jimmie Dale came out on Washington Square. He crossed to Waverly Place, and, on the point of starting along Fifth Avenue, drew suddenly back around the corner. A man, walking rapidly, was just turning into Fifth Avenue from the opposite corner. Jimmie Dale drew in his breath sharply. He had got out of sight just in time. He recognised the quick, springy walk of the other. It was Meighan, of Headquarters. And then Jimmie Dale smiled a little whimsically. They were both bound for the same place, he and Meighan, of Headquarters—Kenleigh’s apartment, that was a little way further on there along the Avenue.
A short distance behind the other, but on the opposite side of the street, Jimmie Dale followed the detective. There was hardly any use now in going to Kenleigh’s, for, if the detective was really bound for there, it made his, Jimmie Dale’s, errand useless—the summoning of the Headquarters’ man was prima facie evidence that the robbery had already been committed. And yet a certain grim curiosity remained. Just how had it been done? And besides, she had said, “half-past one at Virat’s,” so there was time to spare. The distorted lips of Larry the Bat thinned ominously. No; it was not useless even now. He had a very strong personal interest in all that had taken place—Virat would be the less likely to slip through his fingers, or through the fingers of the law, for the information that the scene of the robbery might supply!
Meighan disappeared suddenly inside an apartment house, which Jimmie Dale recognised as a rather fashionable one, devoted exclusively to bachelors’ quarters, Jimmie Dale quickened his step, walked on to the next corner, crossed the street, and came back along the block. As he approached the apartment-house entrance, voices reached him from the vestibule, and then he heard the closing of a door.
“Ground floor—left,” murmured Larry the Bat to himself. He smiled facetiously. “Saves an interview with the janitor!”
He glanced sharply around him in all directions—and the next instant was inside the vestibule—and in another, without a sound, was crouched close against the apartment door. A delicate little steel picklock was working now, the deft fingers manipulating it silently, and then stealthily he pushed the door open a crack. A man’s voice, agitated, came to him from within: “... Perhaps twenty minutes, I don’t know—the length of time it took you to get here. I was dining out. I ‘phoned Headquarters the instant I came in.”
Jimmie Dale pushed the door further open, slipped through, and left the door just ajar behind him. He was in the hallway of a very small apartment, of not more than two or three rooms, he judged. Diagonally ahead of him a light streamed out from an open door. He stole toward this, and, pressed close against the jamb of the door, peered in.
It was a sort of sitting-room, or den, cosily furnished with deep, comfortable lounging chairs. There was a flat-topped desk in the centre, a telephone on the desk; and at the rear of the room a connecting door, leading presumably to the bedroom, was open. A clean-shaven, dark-eyed man of perhaps thirty-five, Kenleigh obviously, was pacing nervously up and down. His face was pale, his hair ruffled; and, in his distraction, apparently, he had forgotten to remove the cloak which he was wearing over his evening clothes. In the far corner of the room, Meighan, the detective, knelt upon the floor amidst a scene of grotesque disorder. The door of a very small safe had been “souped,” and now sagged open. Books and papers littered the floor, and were strewn over a mattress that, evidently dragged from the inner room, had been swaddled around the safe to deaden the sound of the explosion.
“You don’t understand!” Kenleigh burst out, with a groan. “This means absolute ruin to me! A hundred thousand dollars in bonds—payable to bearer—and—and, God help me, they weren’t mine!”
“Say”—Meighan, still busily occupied with the fractured safe, spoke gruffly, though not unkindly, over his shoulder—“I understand all right, but don’t lose your nerve, Mr. Kenleigh. It won’t get you anywhere, and it doesn’t follow because the swag is gone that we can’t get it back. I know the guy that pulled this job.”
“You—what!” Kenleigh, his face lighting up as though with a sudden hope, stepped quickly toward the detective. “What did you say? You know who did it!”
“Don’t get excited!” advised Meighan coolly. “Sure, I know! That is, it’s a toss-up between one of two, and that’s easy. We’ll round ‘em both up before morning, and then I guess it won’t be much of a trick to pick the winner. They won’t be looking for trouble as quick as this. We’ll get ‘em, all right. It’s a toss-up between Mug Garretty and the Magpie.”
Kenleigh was staring incredulously at the detective.
“How do you know?” he gasped out. “I—I don’t—”
“I daresay you don’t.” Meighan was chuckling now. “It’s like this, Mr. Kenleigh. A crook’s like any one else, like an artist, say—you get to know ‘em, get to spot ‘em, especially safe workers, from certain peculiarities about their work. They can’t any more help it than stop breathing. Here, for instance, the way he—” Meighan stopped suddenly. He had been pulling the mattress away from the front of the safe, and now, with a sharp, exultant exclamation, he stooped quickly and picked up a small object from the floor. He held it out, twirling It between thumb and forefinger, for Kenleigh’s inspection—a flashy scarf pin, horseshoe-shaped, of blatantly imitation diamonds.
Kenleigh shook his head bewilderingly.
“I suppose you mean that you recognise it?” he ventured.
“Recognize it!” Meighan laughed low, and, stepping past Kenleigh to the desk, picked up the telephone, and called Headquarters. “Recognise it!” With the receiver to his ear, waiting for his connection, he turned toward Kenleigh. “Why, say, walk over to the Bowery and show it to the first person you meet, and he’d call the turn. Pretty, isn’t it? When he’s dolled up, he’s some—hello!” He swung around to the telephone. “Headquarters?... Meighan speaking from Kenleigh’s apartment... Get a drag out for the Magpie on the jump.... Eh?... Yes!... Left his visiting card.... What?... Yes, wound a mattress around the box and souped it; his scarf pin must have caught in the ticking and pulled out.... Sure, that’s the one—the horseshoe—found it on the floor.... What?... Yes, the chances are ten to one he will, it’s his only play.... All right, I’ll get Mr. Kenleigh’s story meanwhile.... I’ll be here till you 'phone.... Yes.... All right!”
Meighan hung up the receiver, sat down in a chair, and motioned toward another that was close alongside the desk.
“Turn out the light, Mr. Kenleigh,” he said abruptly; “and sit down here.”
Kenleigh looked his amazement.
“Turn out the light?” he repeated perplexedly.
“Yes,” Meighan nodded. “And at once, please.”
Obeying mechanically, Kenleigh moved toward the electric-light switch. There was a faint click, and the apartment was in darkness. Came then the sound of Kenleigh making his way back across the room, and settling himself in the chair beside the detective.
“I—I don’t quite see,” said Kenleigh, a little nervously. “I—”
“You will in a minute,” interrupted Meighan, in a low voice. “Don’t make any noise now, and don’t speak much above a whisper. That little glass stick pin is worth twenty years to the Magpie. See? When he finds that he has lost it, he’ll take any risk to make sure that he didn’t lose it here. Get the idea? It would plant him for keeps, and nobody knows it any better than he does.”
“You mean he’ll come back here?” whispered Kenleigh eagerly.
Meighan chuckled.
“Sure, he’ll come back here—if he isn’t nabbed beforehand! It’s the only chance he’s got. Don’t you worry, Mr. Kenleigh. He’s a shy bird, is the Magpie, or he’d have been up the river long before now, but we’ve got him coming and going this deal. Now then, I haven’t got the details from you yet. What time this evening did you get back here before you went out to dine?”
It was quite dark now, and Jimmie Dale leaned forward a little to catch the words. Both men were speaking in guarded undertones.
“About six o’clock,” Kenleigh answered. “I came straight from the office. I put the bonds in that safe there, and I should say it was a quarter to seven by the time I had dressed and gone out again.”
“And, say, halfpast eleven when you got back. So some time between seven o’clock and halfpast eleven, Mr. Magpie got into the courtyard, put a jimmy at work on the bathroom window beyond the bedroom there, got busy—more likely to be nearer eleven than seven—he would have been back before now, otherwise, eh?” Meighan seemed to be communing with himself, rather than talking to Kenleigh. “Wouldn’t make such an awful noise—didn’t need much juice on that safe—pretty slick with the smother game—didn’t raise an item, anyway.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Meighan spoke again:
“Let’s have your story, Mr. Kenleigh. How did you come to bring a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of bonds home with you? And how did the Magpie get onto the lay?”
“I don’t know, unless he stood in with the bond firm’s messenger; that’s the only way in which I could account for it,” said Kenleigh huskily. “And I’ve no right to say that God knows I’ve no wish to get an innocent man into trouble. I’ve no proof—but I can’t see any other solution.” Kenleigh’s voice broke. He seemed to steady himself with an effort. “I’m an insurance broker with an office on Wall Street, as I daresay you know. A client of mine, a well-known millionaire here in the city, wanted a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the Canadian War Loan bonds, but for business reasons, he has a large German connection, he did not want his name to appear in the transaction.” Kenleigh hesitated.
“Sure!” said Meighan. “I see. Wise guy! Go on!”
“He commissioned me to get them for him.” Kenleigh’s voice was agitated as he continued. “I telephoned Thorpe, LeLand and Company, the brokers, where I was personally known, explained the circumstances, and placed the order. My client was to give me a check for the amount on the delivery of the bonds to him. I was to place this to my own credit in the bank, and check against it in favour of Thorpe, LeLand and Company. They sent the bonds over to my office by a messenger about five o’clock this afternoon. It was too late to put them in a safe-deposit vault. I locked them first in my office safe, and then I grew nervous about them, and took them out again.”
“Anybody see you do that?” queried Meighan quickly.
“No; I don’t see how they could. I’ve only a small one-room office, and there was nobody there but myself.”
“And so they kind of got your goat, and you figured the safest thing to do was to bring them home with you?” suggested Meighan.
“Yes.” There was a miserable note of dejection in Kenleigh’s voice. “Yes; that’s what I did. And I put them in that safe. You know the rest, and—and, oh, my God, what am I to do! My client, naturally, won’t pay for what he does not receive, and I owe Thorpe, LeLand and Company a hundred thousand dollars.” He laughed out a little hysterically. “A hundred thousand dollars! It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? I’ve got a little money, all I’ve been able to save in ten years’ work, a few thousand. I’m ruined.”
“Don’t talk so loud!” cautioned Meighan. He whistled low under his breath. “You’re certainly up against it, Mr. Kenleigh, but you buck up! We’ll get ‘em. And, anyway, bonds can be traced.”
“These are payable to bearer,” said Kenleigh numbly. “There were three classes of bonds in this issue—those payable to bearer; those registered as to principal; and those fully registered, that is where the interest is paid by government check instead of the bonds having coupons. Naturally, under the circumstances, it was the 'payable-to-bearer’ bonds that my client wanted.”
“Well, they’re numbered, aren’t they?” Meighan returned encouragingly.
“That’s poor consolation for me,” said Kenleigh bitterly. “Suppose some of them, or even all of them, were recovered that way in time—where do I stand to-morrow morning?”
“I guess that’s right—if the Magpie ever got a chance to hand them over to some fence,” admitted Meighan. “The fence could dispose of them by the underground route all over the country where the numbers weren’t staring everybody in the face. Yes, I guess they could cash in, all right. Or it wouldn’t be much of a trick for a good plate-worker to alter a number or two, either—the game’s big enough. But”—Meighan chuckled again—“he hasn’t got away with it yet!”
Kenleigh made no answer.
It was still again in the apartment. Through the darkness only a few feet away from Jimmie Dale, the two men sat there silently, waiting, as he had waited, in the darkness, and the silence—for the Magpie. There seemed an abhorrent, gruesome analogy in the situation—this waiting for a murdered man to come!
The minutes dragged by, ten, fifteen of them. And now Jimmie Dale, cramped though he was, dared not shift his position; the movement of a foot, the slightest stir would be heard. It would have been better if he had gone before they had ceased talking. He had heard enough long before then, and yet—
Suddenly, startling, like the clash of an alarm bell through the silence, the telephone rang. Jimmie Dale heard Meighan fumble for the receiver; and then, as the other spoke, seizing the opportunity, he began to retreat stealthily back across the hallway toward the vestibule door.
“Hello!” Meighan’s voice was still guarded. “Yes—yes ... What!” His voice rose suddenly in a rasping cry. “What’s that! Dead! Murdered! Wait a minute! Kenleigh, they’ve found the Magpie murdered in his room!”
“Murdered!” cried Kenleigh; then, frantically: “But the bonds, the bonds! Did they find the bonds? Ask them! Tell them to look! The bonds! Are the bonds there?”
“Hello!” Meighan was evidently speaking into the ‘phone again. “Any trace of the bonds? ... What? ... Yes, yes; go on, I’m listening! ... Who? ... What?... Good Lord!” The receiver clicked back on its hook.
“What is it? What do they say?” demanded Kenleigh feverishly.
“Mr. Kenleigh,” said Meighan soberly, “there’s been a little feud on in the underworld for the last few months. It came to a showdown to-night, and the man that won played in luck—he’s killed two birds with one stone, I guess. It looks damned black for your bonds, I’m afraid.”
“They’re—they’re gone?” faltered Kenleigh.
“Yes—and for keeps, I guess,” said Meighan gruffly. He laughed shortly, mirthlessly. “You can turn the light on now; we’d wait a long time here—for the Gray Seal!”
CHAPTER VIII. AT HALFPAST ONE
Larry the Bat closed the outer door noiselessly behind him, slipped through the vestibule—and, an instant later, was slouching along Fifth Avenue, heading back toward Washington Square. His hands in his ragged pockets clenched. It had been well worked out—with a devil’s ingenuity. The police had swallowed the bait, jumped to the inevitable conclusion desired, and credited the Gray Seal with the double crime of theft and murder without an instant’s hesitation. Well, why shouldn’t they! It had been well planned; it was natural enough! Larry the Bat, in his turn, laughed, mirthlessly. But the game was not yet played out!
Through the by-ways, lanes and alleys of the underworld, Jimmie Dale once more threaded his way, and finally, mounting the dark stairway leading upward from the side entrance of a small house just off Chatham Square, he let himself stealthily into a room on the first landing. It was Virat now, and this was where Virat lived—a locality where a stranger took his life in his hand any time! Below stairs was a pseudo tea-merchant’s store—kept by a Chinese “hatchet” man. But Lang Chang had not been in evidence when he, Jimmie Dale, had crept up the stairs, for there had been no light in the store windows.
And now Jimmie Dale’s flashlight was playing around the room. Halfpast one, she had said. It could not be more than one o’clock as yet There was ample time to search for the bonds.
He began to move noiselessly around the room—a rather ornately furnished combination sitting and bedroom. “Keep away, if dangerous,” had been the Tocsin’s caution. He smiled grimly. What danger could there be? He had only to face one at a time; the Tocsin could absolutely be depended upon to see to that, and the advantage of surprise was with him. He was pulling out the drawer of a bureau now—and now his hands were searching swiftly under the mattress of the bed. It was necessary to secure the bonds. Barring that little matter of the numbers, they were as good as cash—and the matter of numbers would not trouble Virat. He knew Virat, and he had known Virat very well—but not so well by far as he knew him now! Virat was as suave and polished a gentleman crook as the country possessed. Viral was the sort of man who, after the uproar had died down, would have the nerve and address to take up his residence in some little out-of-the-way place, and either dispose of as many of the bonds at a time as he dared to those he would cultivate as friends, or even have the audacity to secure a loan on a modest number of them from the local bank itself, whose conversance with the missing numbers might be expected to be of the haziest description. Also Virat would be careful to see that his offerings were not made at such dates as to have the interest coupons cause him any inconvenience by falling due within twenty-four hours! It would be quite simple—for Virate! In six months, in as many places, with the length and breadth of the country to choose from, Virat could quite readily dispose of the lot; not quite at the issue price perhaps if he secured loans, but still at a figure that would be very profitable—for Virat! Or, as Meighan had suggested, with the aid of a confederate of the right sort, the change of a figure—ah! Jimmie Dale; flat upon the floor, his hand stretched in under the washstand, drew out a short, round, heavy object. He examined this attentively for a second; and then, his face hardening, he slipped it into his coat pocket.
He resumed his musings, and resumed his search through the room. Virat was clever enough to find means of disposing of the bonds in some fashion or other, and too clever to have ever committed murder for them otherwise—there was no doubt of that. And, after all, what difference did it make whatever Virat’s method might be! It was extraneous, immaterial. Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders. The vital question was—where were the bonds?
It was a strange search there in the murderer’s room, the flashlight winking and flinging its little gleams of light through the blackness; a strange search, thorough as only Jimmie Dale could make it—and still leave no tell-tale sign behind to witness that a single object in the room had been disturbed. But the search was futile; and at the end Jimmie Dale smiled whimsically.
“The process of elimination again!” he muttered. “I seem to be obsessed with that to-night. Well, not being here, there’s only one place the bonds can be. The process of elimination has its advantages.” The flashlight circled around the room, and held for a moment on the electric-light switch near the door. “It must be after halfpast one,” said Jimmie Dale—and suddenly snapped off his light.
There came a faint creaking noise—some one was cautiously mounting the stairs. Jimmie Dale snatched his automatic from his pocket, and without a sound stole forward across the room to a position by the door. The footsteps were on the landing now. The doorknob was tried; the door began to open slowly, inch by inch, wider; a dark form slipped through into the room; the floor was closed again—and Jimmie Dale, reaching forward, clapped the muzzle of his automatic against the other’s head. But it was Larry the Bat who spoke—in a hoarse, guttural whisper.
“Youse let a peep outer youse, an’ youse goes bye-bye for keeps! See? Put yer hands over yer head, an’ do it—quick!”
Jimmie Dale’s left hand reached out and switched on the light. It was Meighan, hands elevated, startled, angry, who stood blinking in the glare—and then a low cry came from the man.
“Larry the Bat—the Gray Seal! So it’s a plant, is it! That damned she-pal of yours handed it to me good over the ‘phone!” Meighan’s lips tightened. “And where’s Virat—did you kill him, too?”
Jimmie Dale’s hand was searching swiftly through the detective’s clothes. He transferred a revolver and a pair of handcuffs to his own pockets.
“I had ter take a chance on de light,” said Larry the Bat plaintively; “‘cause I had ter frisk youse.” He turned off the light again. “Sure, she’s a slick one!” Larry the Bat, his left hand free again, turned his flashlight upon the detective. “Youse can put yer flippers down now. Mabbe she staked youse ter de tip dat de bonds was here, eh?”
“Yes, blast you—both of you!” growled Meighan.
“Well, dey ain’t,” said Larry the Bat coolly; “but mabbe, after all, she wasn’t handin’ youse no steer.”
Meighan, savage at his own helplessness, snarled his words.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Mabbe nothin’—mabbe a whole lot.” Larry the Bat dropped his voice mysteriously. “I was thinkin’ of pullin’ off a little show here, an’ youse have de luck ter get an invite, dat’s all. Mabbe I’ll hand youse somethin’ on a gold platter, an’ mabbe I’ll hand youse—this!” The automatic was shoved significantly an inch closer to Meighan’s face. “Youse know me! Youse know what’ll happen if youse play any funny tricks! No guy gets de Gray Seal alive—I guess youse are wise ter dat, ain’t youse? Now den, over youse go behind dat big chair on de other side of de table!”
Meighan, a puzzled look replacing the angry expression on his face, blinked.
“What’s the lay?” he queried.
“I’m expectin’ company,” grinned Larry the Bat. “Youse keeps yer yap closed till youse gets de cue—savvy? Dat’s all! If youse play fair, mabbe youse’ll get a look-in on de rake-off; if youse throws me down, the first shot I fires won’t miss youse. Go on now, get down behind dat chair—quick!”
Hesitantly, following the flashlight’s directing ray, covered by Jimmie Dale’s automatic, Meighan, muttering, made his way across the room, and crouched down behind the back of a large lounging chair. Jimmie Dale leaned nonchalantly against the jamb of the door, the flashlight holding a bead upon the chair.
“Youse’ll pardon me if I keeps de spot-light on youse,” drawled Larry the Bat, “Some of youse dicks ain’t trustworthy.”
“Look here!” Meighan burst out. “This is a hell of a note! What—”
“Youse shut yer face!” Jimmie Dale’s voice had grown suddenly cold and menacing—the stairs were creaking again, this time under a quick tread. “Listen! Say, youse don’t have ter wait long fer de curtain, ter go up on de act. Don’t youse make a sound!”
The doorknob turned. Jimmie Dale whipped his flashlight into his pocket—and in a flash, as a man entered, switched on the light, and slammed shut the door. A dapper individual, wearing tortoise-rimmed glasses, with black moustache and goatee, was staring into the muzzle of Jimmie Dale’s automatic.
“Hello, Frenchy!” observed Larry the Bat suavely. “Feelin’ faint?”
The man’s face had gone a chalky white. He looked wildly around him, as though seeking some avenue of escape.
“Mon Dieu!” he whispered. “Larree ze Bat! It is ze Gray Seal! It is—”
“Aw, cut out dat parlay-voo dope!” Larry the Bat broke in curtly. “Youse don’t need ter pull dat stuff wid me, Virat. Talk New York, see?”
Virat moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
“What do you want here?” he asked huskily.
“Oh, nothin’ much,” said Larry the Bat airily. “I thought mabbe youse might figure dere was some of dem bonds comin’ ter me.”
“Bonds! I don’t know anything about any bonds,” said Virat, in a low voice. “I don’t know what you are talking about.’
“You don’t—eh?” inquired Larry the Bat ominously. “Well den, I’ll help ter put youse wise. But mabbe I’d better get yer gun first, eh?” As he had done to Meighan, he removed a revolver from Virat’s pocket. “T’anks!” he said. He pushed Virat with his revolver muzzle toward the table, and forced the other into a chair. He sat down opposite Virat, and smiled unpleasantly. “Now den, come across! Youse croaked de Magpie ter-night!”
“You’re dippy!” sneered Virat. “I haven’t seen the Magpie in a month.”
“An’ dat’s what youse did it wid.” Larry the Bat, as though he had not heard the other’s denial, reached into his pocket, and shoved a small, murderous, bloodstained blackjack, the leather-covered piece of lead pipe that he had found beneath the washstand, suddenly across the table under Virat’s eyes.
With a sharp cry, staring, Virat shrank back.
“Sure! Now youse’re talkin’!” approved Larry the Bat complacently. “But dat ain’t all. Say, youse have got a gall! Youse thought youse’d plant me, did youse, wid dat gray seal on de Magpie’s boot!” Jimmie Dale’s voice was deadly cold again. “Well, what about dat?”
“What do you want?” mumbled Virat.
Jimmie Dale’s smile was not inviting.
“I told youse once, didn’t I? What do youse suppose I want! If I got ter fall fer it, I want some of dem bonds—dat’s what I want!”
A look of relief spread over Virat’s face.
“All right,” he said hurriedly. “I—that’s—that’s fair. I—I’ll get them for you.” He started up from his chair, his eyes travelling instinctively toward the door.
“Youse sit down!” invited Larry the Bat coldly.
“But—but you said—I—I was going to get them,” faltered Virat.
“Sure!” said Larry the Bat. “Dat’s de idea! An’, say, I’m in a hurry. Dey ain’t over dere, Frenchy—try nearer home!”
Virat’s hands trembled as he unbuttoned his vest. He reached around under the back of his vest, drew out a flat package, and laid it on the table. He began to untie the cord.
“Wait a minute!” said Larry the Bat pleasantly. “I ain’t in so much of a hurry now dat I got me lamps on ‘em! Youse can count ‘em out after—half for youse, an’ half fer me. Tell us how youse fixed de lay.”
And then, for the first time, Virat laughed, though still a little nervously.
“Yes, that’s square,” he agreed eagerly. “I—I was afraid you were going to pinch them all. I’ll tell you. It was easy. I piped the Magpie off to a chap named Kenleigh having the bonds up there in his rooms in an apartment house. I couldn’t crack Kenleigh’s safe myself, but it was nuts for the Magpie—see? He cracked the safe. I was with him, and I copped that near-diamond pin of his, and left it there so there wouldn’t be any guessing as to who pulled off the job, and then we beat it back to his place to divide—and I beaned him. I wasn’t looking into any gun then, and handing over fifty thousand—and besides, with the Magpie out of the way, I had some alibi.” Virat laughed shortly. “That’s where you come in. Everybody knew you had it in for him. All I had to do was—well, what you said I did. If you hadn’t tumbled to it, and I’m damned if I can see how you did, there wasn’t anything to it at all. It was open and shut that the Magpie pinched the swag, and that you croaked him and beat it with the bonds.”
“Say,” said Larry the Bat admiringly, “youse’re some slick gazabo, youse are! But how did youse know dat guy Kenleigh had de goods?”
“That’s none of your business, is it?” replied Virat, a little defiantly. “You’re getting yours now.”
Larry the Bat appeared to ponder the other’s words, a curious smile on his lips.
“Well, mabbe it ain’t,” he admitted. “Let it go anyway, an’ split the swag. Count ‘em out!”
Virat picked up the package again, and began to untie it—and again Jimmie Dale’s hand slipped into his pocket. And then, quick as the winking of an eye, as Virat’s hands came together over a knot, Jimmie Dale leaned across the table, there was a click, and the steel were locked on the other’s wrists.
There was a scream of fury, an oath from Virat.
“Dat’s yer cue, Meighan,” called Larry the Bat calmly. “Come out an’ take a look at him!”
A ghastly pallor spreading over his face, staring like a demented man, as Meighan, rising from behind the lounging chair, advanced toward the table, Virat huddled back in his seat.
“Know him?” inquired Larry the Bat.
The detective bent sharply forward.
“My god!” he exclaimed. “It’s—no, it can’t—”
“Mabbe,” murmured Larry the Bat, “youse’d know him better when he ain’t dolled up.” He swept the glasses from Virat’s nose, and wrenched away the black moustache and goatee.
“Kenleigh!” gasped Meighan.
“Mabbe,” said Larry the Bat, with a twisted grin, “dere’s somethin’ he may have fergotten ter wise youse up on, but he didn’t mean ter hide nothin’ in his confession—did youse, Frenchy? An’ mabbe dere’s one or two other things in de years he’s been playin’ Kenleigh dat he’ll tell youse about, if youse ask him—nice and pleasant-like!”
Larry the Bat edged around the table, and, covering Meighan with his revolver, backed to the door.
“Well, so long, Meighan!” he said softly, from the threshold. “T’ink of me when dey pins de medal on yer breast fer dis!”
And then Jimmie Dale laid Meighan’s revolver down on the floor of the room, and locked the door on the outside with a pick-lock, and went down the stairs.
CHAPTER IX. ‘WARE THE WOLF
Jimmie Dale’s fingers, in the darkness, were deftly tying around his body the leather girdle with its finely-tempered, compact kit of burglar’s tools. It was strange, this note of hers to-night—strange, even, where all the notes that she had ever written had been strange! It had been left half an hour ago at the door of the St. James Club—and he had hastened here to the Sanctuary. It was curiously strange! Three nights ago, he had seen Frenchy Virat safely in the hands of the police, and Frenchy Virat was still safely in police custody—but he, Jimmie Dale, was not yet done with Frenchy Virat, it seemed! The note had made that quite clear. There was still the Wolf; and it was the Wolf that filled this anxious, hurried word from her to-night.
The Wolf! He knew the Wolf well—as Larry the Bat in the old days he had even known the other personally as Smarlinghue of to-day he had progressed that far into the inner ring of the underworld again as to be on nodding terms with the Wolf. The man was a power in the underworld—and a devil in human guise. In a career extending back over many years, a career in which no single crime in the decalogue had been slighted, the Wolf had successfully managed to evade the clutches of the law until his name had become a synonym for craft and cunning in the Bad Lands, and the man himself the object of the vicious hero-worship of that sordid world where murder cradled and foul things lived. The police had marked the man, marked him a score of times; in their records a hundred unsolved crimes pointed to the Wolf—but they had never “got” him—always the thread of evidence that seemed to lead to that queer house near Chatham Square was broken on the way—and the Wolf, with steadily increasing prestige and authority in gangland, laughed in the faces of the police, and here and there a plain-clothes man, over-zealous perhaps, died.
That was the Wolf—but that was not all! Jimmie Dale’s face hardened into grim lines, as he lifted out from under the baseboard “Smarlinghue’s” frayed and seedy coat, and put it on. Between the Wolf and the Gray Seal there was now a personal feud. Above the reek of those whisperings in the underworld, above that muttered slogan, “death to the Gray Seal,” that men flung at each other from the twisted corners of their mouths, the Wolf had snarled, and the underworld had listened, and the underworld was waiting now—the Wolf had pledged himself to rid the Bad Lands of the terror that had crept upon it. He had sworn, and staked his reputation on his pledge, to “get” Larry the Bat, alias the Gray Seal—and in the eyes of the underworld, as the underworld sighed with relief, it was already accomplished, for the Wolf had never failed.
Jimmie Dale stooped down, felt in under the baseboard again, and took out a little make-up box. The Wolf’s incentive was not one of philanthropy toward his fellow denizens of crimeland, whose ranks had been thinned by those who, thanks to the Gray Seal, had gone “up the river,” some of them, many of them, to that room in Sing Sing’s death-house from which none ever returned alive; nor was it, to give the Wolf his due, through a personal fear that his own career might end, as those others’ had, at the hands of the Gray Seal; nor, again, was it through any tardy, eleventh-hour conversion, any belated edging toward the way of grace that found expression in a desire to array himself on the side of those representing the forces of law and order. It was none of these things that actuated the Wolf—it was Frenchy Virat, alias one Kenleigh, who was awaiting trial in the Tombs. Frenchy Virat was the Wolf’s bosom friend!
The wheezy, air-choked gas-jet spluttered into a blue flame, as Jimmie Dale lighted it. It disclosed, in shadow, the battered easel, the dirty canvases, some finished, some but tentative daubs, that banked the wall in disorder opposite the small French window, whose shade was closely drawn; it crept dimly into the far corner of the room and disclosed the cheap cot, unmade, the blanket upon it rumpled in negligent untidiness; it fell full, such as its fulness was, upon the rickety table that was littered with unwashed dishes and sticky paint tubes, and, at one end of the table, on an evening newspaper, and, beside the newspaper, the Tocsin’s note and a newspaper clipping.
Jimmie Dale sat down at the table, brushed the dishes and paint tubes together into a heap, and propped up against them a cracked and streaked mirror. He opened his make-up box, and as, swiftly, with masterly touch, the grey, sickly pallor that was Smarlinghue’s transformed his face, and as, from little distorting pieces of wax, there came into being the hollow cheeks, the thin, extended lips, the widened nostrils, he kept glancing at the newspaper, reading again an article that was set, on the front page, under heavy type captions—the article which was identical with the clipping, and which latter the Tocsin had enclosed with her note, lest he should not have seen the original himself.
UNIDENTIFIED BODY FOUND UNDER PIER IN NORTH RIVER
VICTIM OF FOUL PLAY
FACE IS MUTILATED BEYOND RECOGNITION
The details as set forth in the “story” were gruesomely interesting enough from a morbid point of view; but from the point of view of the police they were both meagre and unsatisfactory. It was murder unquestionably—and murder of a most brutal character. The headline had epitomised it—the face was mutilated beyond recognition. Every belonging, obviously with the design to prevent, or at least retard, identification, had been stripped from the body. One point alone appeared to be established, and that, if anything, but added to the mystery which surrounded the crime. According to medical opinion, the murder had been committed but a very short time before the body was discovered; and, since the victim had been found at three o’clock that afternoon, the body must have been thrown into the water in broad daylight.
Jimmie Dale worked on—his fingers seeming to fly with ever-increasing speed. There was no time to lose; every minute, every second, counted against him. If he could only have acted on the instant, as Jimmie Dale, when he had received the note at the club! But he had not had that leather girdle at the club—no blue-steel tools that would be needed, no mask, and he had not been armed—everything had been here in the Sanctuary. And, once here, since he had been forced to lose that much time, he had risked a little more, precious as the moments were, for the advantages, the safety, the freedom of movement, afforded by the character of Smarlinghue. However, it was still but barely eleven o’clock, and the chances were that the Wolf would hardly have deemed it late enough as yet to set to work. On the other hand—well, on the other hand, if the Wolf had proved the early bird, then, perhaps, he and the Wolf would have, in another place and time to-night, a more personal reckoning than was anticipated in the Tocsin’s plan!
His eyes picked up snatches of her note, as they skimmed it swiftly again.
“... The Wolf ... old storehouse on river front ... through trap into the water ... old Webb ... Spider Webb ... ten thousand dollar Moorcliffe jewel robbery ... cash box ... safe behind panelling in bedroom directly opposite the door ... false bottom ... afraid of the Wolf ... last few days ... unfinished ... Wolf does not know ... man and wife upstairs ... old couple ... keep house for the Spider ... no suspicion that anything has happened ...” And then, at the end, a more personal, intimate touch: “Jimmie, it is not to save some one else that I have written this to-night, for that is now too late—it is to save you. The Wolf is dangerous and I am afraid. You know that he has sworn to trap you. He is cunning, Jimmie—do not underestimate him. That is why I have written this—if you succeed to-night ...”
Jimmie Dale’s fingers were tearing the note now into infinitesimal shreds, and, with it, the newspaper clipping. The newspaper itself he crumpled up and tossed into the corner. He crossed the room, replaced the make-up box in its hiding place, put back the movable section of the base-board, turned out the light—and a minute later, Smarlinghue, unkempt, stoop-shouldered, let himself out, not by the French window through which he had entered stealthily in the evening clothes of Jimmie Dale, but unconcernedly, as was the right of any tenant, by the door that opened on the ground-floor passage of the tenement, and shuffled down the street.
The Wolf—and Spider Webb—and Larry the Bat! It was a curious trio! Smarlinghue’s lips, perhaps because the wax beneath was not yet moulded comfortably into place, twitched queerly. One of them was dead—the Spider. There remained—the Wolf and Larry the Bat! No, he did not underestimate the Wolf—only a fool, and a blinded fool, would do that. The Wolf had shown his fangs in deadly enough fashion that morning—with a brutal murder, craftily planned, and hellishly executed! And yet the Wolf was quite hopelessly illogical! It was no secret in the underworld that the Wolf and Spider Webb had long worked together, and that the Spider was a close friend of the Wolf. Yet the Wolf had murdered the Spider, and at the same time had found a basis for his oath to end Larry the Bat, because Larry the Bat had been instrumental in handing over to the police a friend of the Wolf!
Smarlinghue slouched on along the street, but the “slouch” covered the ground at an amazing rate of speed. He had not far to go—but neither had he a moment that he dared lose. Spider Webb’s old antique shop, but a few blocks away, nestled in a squalid little courtyard just west of the Bowery, and on the same side of the Bowery as the Sanctuary.
Some one, out of the shadows of the street, flung him a good-night. Smarlinghue mumbled his acknowledgment from the corner of his mouth, and hurried along.
His thoughts were still on the Wolf. He had not exhausted the sum of the Wolf’s digressions from the realms of the logical! In the old days there had been an intimacy even between the Wolf and Larry the Bat. That underground passage from the shed into that queer house near Chatham Square, for instance—which was known only to the most intimate! But perhaps the Wolf had forgotten, or perhaps even the Wolf had never known he had been on quite such intimate terms with—Larry the Bat.
Jimmie Dale glanced behind him. There was no one in sight for the moment. He was at the corner of a lane now—and he chose the lane. It was a shorter, and a safer route. It bordered on the rear of the courtyard which was his objective, and obviated the necessity of attempting to steal down past the side of “The Yellow Eastern” unnoticed. No, he did not underestimate the Wolf, but if he had luck to-night—! He shrugged his shoulders in a sort of grim whimsicality.
His mind reverted to the Spider now—Spider Webb. Facetious, in a way, the name was! Webb—Spider Webb! And yet the man had come by it honestly, or dishonestly, enough! The old antique shop for years covered dealings that were shabbier than the shabbiest of its antiques! It was probable that more stolen had found Spider Webb’s a clearing house than any other Mecca of the crooks in New York. It was probable, too, that it had known more police raids than any of its competitors—but, unlike many of its competitors, nothing but what indubitably belonged there had ever been found. But then again, the Spider was a specialist—he specialised in small articles, particularly jewelry—no one in the Bad Lands who knew his way about would ever have dreamed of going to the Spider with anything else! Nor was the Spider without justification in thus restricting his operations. The Spider had always managed to hide his questionable wares, until he was able to dispose of them and they passed again out of his possession, with an ingenuity that had baffled, enraged, and mortified the police—and commanded the enthusiastic confidence and admiration of the underworld! But this was, for the most part, past history, and of the days gone by, for the Spider now had grown old—had grown to be an old man—for it had begun of late to be whispered that he talked more than he had been wont to talk in the days of his prime, that he was not as safe as he had been, and in consequence his trade of late had begun to drift away from him.
And herein lay the secret of the old man’s murder at the hands of the Wolf. The Tocsin’s note had not failed to lay stress on this. No one probably, through a career of half a score of years, knew more about the Wolf and the Wolf’s doings than did the Spider. Rightly or wrongly, the word was out that the old man, in his garrulity, was not safe—and the Wolf was inviting no chances where the electric chair was concerned, that was all! The old man would henceforth be perfectly safe, as far as any talking went! It was brutal, hideous—but it was the Wolf! Also, the Wolf, tritely expressed, had proposed to kill two birds with one stone. The old man’s trade was not entirely gone. Yesterday, an old-time lag, who had dealt with the Spider for many years, and who had “pulled” the Moorcliffe job—the robbery of a summer mansion a few miles up the Hudson—had “fenced” the proceeds at the antique shop. Ten thousand dollars’ worth of first-water sparklers! Everybody that was anybody in gangland knew this. The Wolf had seen the psychological and profitable moment to strike—again that was all! And again it was diabolical—but again it was the Wolf!
Jimmie Dale’s face was set like flint. And this was the man who had sworn that he would “get” the Gray Seal! A sort of unholy, passionate joy surged upon him. Well, they would see, he and the Wolf—and perhaps to-night! It was certain that the Wolf would act alone. The man’s devilish cunning showed itself in having inveigled the old man to that storehouse on the river bank, rather than to have killer the Spider in the Spider’s own home. It might be days perhaps before the Spider’s absence—for the Spider’s peculiar life had demanded mysterious absences before—was even commented upon, and the Wolf had taken pains to see that the body was not, immediately at least, identified. It was very simple—from the Wolf’s standpoint! The Wolf was counting it none too easy a task evidently to find the Spider’s ingenious and storied hiding place, and this would give him a night, two nights, or more, in which, undisturbed, he might prosecute his search. And, as he had committed alone, so he would continue to work alone, there were those even in gangland, and in spite of the acknowledged leadership, who would not look with friendly eyes upon the Wolf for this!
It was black here in the lane, and now, possibly a distance of a hundred yards up from the street, Jimmie Dale’s fingers, feeling along the left-hand fence, came upon the latch of a small, narrow door—the courtyard’s access to the lane. He passed through, and stood still—listening—looking sharply about him. He knew the place well. It was the heart and centre, the core of its own particular and vicious section of the underworld. Ahead of him, flanking the two-story, tumble-down building that was the Spider’s home, was a narrow alleyway, then a small and filthy courtyard, and, its rear upon this and fronting the street, the alleyway again at the side, the “The Yellow Lantern” that he had been careful to avoid a dance hall of the lowest type. The Spider had not unshrewdly chosen his location; nor the proprietor of “The Yellow Lantern” his—their clientele was a common one, and their interests did not clash!
From the direction of “The Yellow Lantern” came a hilarious uproar, subdued somewhat by the distance, out of which arose the strident notes of a tinny piano beating blatantly the measure of a turkey trot. There was no other sound. There were lights from the rear of the dance hall, enough, Jimmie Dale knew, to throw a murky illumination over the front windows of the antique shop; but there were no lights showing from the Spider’s dwelling itself, that loomed black on the side of the alleyway at his right hand—the old couple that kept the Spider’s house were doubtless long since in bed in their own particular apartments upstairs.
Jimmie Dale moved softly forward now, gained the back entrance of the Spider’s house, and tried the door cautiously. It was locked. From one of the little pockets in the girdle under his shirt came a black silk mask, which he slipped over his face; from another of the pockets came a little steel picklock. He was pressed close against the door now, his body merged with the black shadows of the wall. A minute passed—and then the door swung open, and closed without a sound. Another minute passed, and still another. From upstairs came the sound of stertorous breathing, nothing else, only quiet, and a silence that was heavy in itself—and then the round, white ray of Jimmie Dale’s flashlight winked through the blackness. As between himself and the Wolf, he was first, at least, on the ground!
He was in the kitchen of the house. On the opposite side of the room from him were two doors, one of them, the one to the left, open—and the flashlight, playing through, disclosed a passageway leading, obviously, to the shop at the front, and continuing to the stairway. He crossed to the right-hand door noiselessly, opened it, and, with a low ejaculation of satisfaction, stepped in over the threshold. It was the room he sought—the Spider’s bedroom, or, better perhaps, the Spider’s den that served the man for all purposes. The Spider, it was very plain, was not fastidious! The room was dingy beyond description; the furnishings poor and poverty-stricken in appearance. It was here the Spider met his clients of a sort—and drove his bargains. There was no hint of affluence—the room was miserly.
The flashlight swept in a circle around the room. There was a bed in one corner, a table and two chairs in another, and a miserable washstand in still another. The centre of the room, save for an old carpet on the floor, was quite bare of furnishings. Jimmie Dale’s survey of the appointments, however, was most cursory—they concerned him little. The flashlight’s ray was even lifted above them, as it moved about. There was only one door—the door by which he had entered; and only one window—which, with a sudden frown, he mentally noted did not open on the alleyway, for the very sufficient reason that the alleyway was on the other side of the house. He stepped quickly to the window, and looked out. It was a moment before he could see; and then, with a quick nod of his head, he began, with extreme caution to loosen the window catches on the sill. There was a narrow space between the house and what was the blank brick wall of the building next to it, and this space extended to the rear, and therefore, indirectly, by circling the house at the back, led to the house and the door in the fence again.
Jimmie Dale smiled grimly, as he swung the old-fashioned windows back on either side. So far he was in luck to-night, and, with luck, in a very few minutes now be out and away from the house by the same way he had entered it—but luck sometimes was a fickle thing, and a goddess most to be trusted by those who looked after themselves!
He walked back to the doorway, and levelled his flashlight across the room directly in front of him. The ray fell upon the wooden panelling, and, holding the light steadily on the same spot, he moved forward across the floor to the opposite wall, dropped on his hands and knees, and began to examine the woodwork critically. It was beautiful work, this panelling that went all around the room, very old, but very beautiful work, and of very beautifully matched wood—it was entirely out of place with the rest of the room, or would have been, were it not that the panelling itself bore witness to the fact that it had been built in there when the house itself had been built, and bore witness, too, to the fact that in those days, long gone by, a relic perhaps even of Dutch handiwork, the house had not been unpretentious amongst its fellows of that generation.
“Behind panelling in bedroom directly opposite the door,” she had written. Inch by inch, over an area a yard square, those sensitive finger tips of Jimmie Dale felt their way, lingering here over a knot in the wood, and there over a joint or crevice. Five minutes went by—and the five became ten. An exclamation of annoyance, low, guarded, escaped him. There was nothing—he could find nothing. The Spider’s ingenuity had not been over-rated! Somewhere there must be the secret spring which operated the panel, but there was no sign of it; neither was there the slightest sign or indication that any portion of the panelling was even movable.
He drew back for an instant, frowning. Perhaps—and then he shook his head—no, the Tocsin did not make mistakes of that kind. The safe was unquestionably behind the panelling in front of him. Well, there was a way—it was distasteful to him because it was crude and bungling, but he could afford no more time in a search, that he had already convinced himself was hopeless.
From the girdle came a half dozen little blue-steel tools. A jimmy found and nosed its way into the joint between two panels. There was a low, faint creak of rending wood. A wedge followed the jimmy. A faint creak again—and now one a little louder—and Jimmie Dale, half turned, listened intently—the narrow board was in his hand. There was nothing—no sound—save that interrupted, stertorous breathing from above, and the tinny jangle of the piano from the direction of “The Yellow Lantern.”
And now Jimmie Dale smiled again—that curious flicker on his lips that mingled whimsicality and a deadly earnestness. The Tocsin had made no mistake. Showing through the aperture, gleaming under the flashlight’s ray, was the nickel dial of a safe. He worked rapidly now. The first panel out, the remainder came much more readily—and finally the entire face of the safe was disclosed. Jimmie Dale stared at it—and pursed his lips. It was an ugly safe, extremely ugly—from a cracksman’s point of view! Also, there seemed a hint of irony, a jeer almost, in the impassive wall of steel that confronted him. It was one of his own make—one that had helped, in the old days, to amass the millions that his father had left to him—and it was one of the best!
In an abstracted, deliberate way, his eyes pondering the safe, the blue-steel tools were replaced in the pockets of the leather girdle; and then the long, slim, tapering fingers closed upon the dial’s knob and twirled it tentatively, and his head bent forward until his ear was pressed hard against the face of the safe.
It was very still now—only the breathing from above that seemed in cadence with those strange and paradoxical palpitations that are known only in a great silence—the piano for the moment had ceased its jangle. Jimmie Dale’s fingers, from the dial, sought the floor, and frictioned briskly over the rough, threadbare carpet, until the nerves tingled under the delicate skin—and then they shot to the dial again.
Strained, every faculty keyed up to its highest tension, he crouched there against the safe. Again and again his fingers rubbed over the rough carpet, and again the sweat beads oozed out upon his forehead with the strain—and then there came through the stillness a long-drawn intake of his breath. The handle swung the bolt with a low metallic thud—the safe was open.
There was the inner door now. Again those slim fingers, almost raw, quivering now at the tips, rubbed along the carpet, and the lips, just showing beneath the edge of the mask, grew tight with pain. Then he leaned forward, crouched once more, his head and shoulders inside the outer door, like some strange animal burrowing for its prey. Faint, musical, like some far distant tinkle, came the twirling of the dial—and then, suddenly, he drew back sharply, his hand shot to his pocket, whipped out his automatic, and, motionless there on his knees, every muscle rigid, he listened. There was the piano again, the breathing, the weird pound and thump of the silence—nothing else. He shook his head in half angry, half tolerant self-remonstrance. He was under strain, that was all—he had thought he had heard a footstep out there in the alleyway. He laid his automatic on the floor within instant reach, and turned again to the safe—acute and sensitive as his hearing was, it would haw taken good ears indeed to have distinguished a step at that distance on the other side of the house!
But now he worked, seemingly at least, with even greater rapidity than before. Imagination had had one effect, if it had had no other—it was a spur, a reminder that at any moment there might well be a footstep, and one that was born only of the imagination! His jaws clamped. He had not counted on this—an old-fashioned iron monstrosity that was dismaying only in its appearance, perhaps—but not this! He had been here far longer now than he—
'Ah’—tense, low, that deep intake of the breath again.
The inner door swung wide; the flashlight’s ray leaped, dazzling white, into the interior, and, on the lower shelf, upon a flat, narrow, black tin box—the cash-box.
In an instant, Jimmie Dale had picked it up. It was not locked, and he lifted the cover. From within there scintillated back the gleam of diamonds—a handful of pendants, brooches, ear-rings lay there disclosed, and, too, a string of pearls. Ten thousand dollars! It was a modest figure! He reached his hand inside the box—and on the instant snatched it back, and thrust the box swiftly into his pocket. The flashlight was out. The room was in darkness.
This time it was not imagination—nor, he knew now, had it been imagination before. There was a faint creak of the flooring in the kitchen, a single incautious step that he placed as having come from near the doorway of the passage—and now some one had halted on the threshold of the room itself. Jimmie Dale’s brain was working with lightning speed. There had been no time to reach the window—time only to snatch up his automatic and retreat a little from the immediate vicinity of the safe. Had the other heard the slight sound—it was only the brushing of his coat against the wall! Much less had there been time to close the safe—nor would it have done any good—he could not have replaced the broken panelling! And now—what? The man, with a stealth that he, Jimmie Dale, except for that one incautious footfall, could not have excelled, must have entered through a window from the alleyway into the passage. It was dark, utterly dark—save that the window showed dimly like a faint transparent square set in the blackness.